Well, yes, sheepishly. Just don’t call me Tom Lehrer.
Who says that makes me a pessimist? 
Exactly. I feel that I am being an optimist. 
House 210D, Senate 48D, Vote 51%D
Hey, I’ve never been shy about my leanings, gentlemen. But what I really enjoy is the math behind elections. At times it feels wrong, but I enjoy ripping into the horse race. Sort of like my love for baseball…it’s a game founded on math. What could be better?
1/21/18
USCDiver House 230D, Senate 51D, Vote 53%D
1/22/18
Bone House 214D, Senate 50D, Vote 51%D
Pleonast House 257D, Senate 49D, Vote 55%D
DSeid House 228D, Senate 49D, Vote 56%D
Railer13 House 225D, Senate 48D, Vote 53%D
1/23/18
Aspenglow House 277D, Senate 52D, Vote 57%D
adaher House 222D, Senate 45D, Vote 53%D
BobLibDem House 260D, Senate 51D, Vote 56%D
Johnny Ace House 220D, Senate 46D, Vote 55%D
1/24/18
Wesley Clark House 235D, Senate 50D, Vote 56%D
Ravenman House 226D, Senate 49D, Vote 52%D
1/25/18
septimus House 211D Senate 50D, Vote 53%D
DinoR House 238D Senate 51D, Vote 52%
1/26/18
UltraVires House 208D, Senate 46D, Vote 50%D
1/27/18
D’Anconia House 210D, Senate 48D, Vote 51%D
I don’t want to let my dopamine deficiency, or whatever it is, lead me to revise my prediction every week. BUT I can’t let my brain-fart stand. :eek:
House 223D Senate 50D, Vote 53%D
Revise every week, I got no issue.
And people should be willing to do so. Predictions will change based on events and polling. Is there advantage to being an early mover? Sure is. But not if it means being locked into a bad guess.
Anyway, what brain fart?
1/21/18
USCDiver House 230D, Senate 51D, Vote 53%D
1/22/18
Bone House 214D, Senate 50D, Vote 51%D
Pleonast House 257D, Senate 49D, Vote 55%D
DSeid House 228D, Senate 49D, Vote 56%D
Railer13 House 225D, Senate 48D, Vote 53%D
1/23/18
Aspenglow House 277D, Senate 52D, Vote 57%D
adaher House 222D, Senate 45D, Vote 53%D
BobLibDem House 260D, Senate 51D, Vote 56%D
Johnny Ace House 220D, Senate 46D, Vote 55%D
1/24/18
Wesley Clark House 235D, Senate 50D, Vote 56%D
Ravenman House 226D, Senate 49D, Vote 52%D
1/25/18
DinoR House 238D Senate 51D, Vote 52%
1/26/18
UltraVires House 208D, Senate 46D, Vote 50%D
1/27/18
D’Anconia House 210D, Senate 48D, Vote 51%D
1/28/18
septimus House 223D Senate 50D, Vote 53%D
Those were pre-gerrymandering votes. After 2010, a vote majority will not matter as much as it mattered before 2010.
Generally in midterms, turnout is about 30% lower than it is in presidential years. So in a presidential year each party may get ~60 million votes in the house, in a midterm they get about 40 million as the baseline.
If one party is demoralized, votes go down by a few million. If one party is energized, votes go up by a few million.
Right now the GOP seems demoralized for many reasons. Trump is a gigantic trainwreck and embarrassment. The only law the GOP passed was tax cuts for the rich.
Meanwhile dems are energized. We control nothing on the federal level and we are tired of all the crime and corruption going unanswered since the GOP refuses to act as an equal branch of government and investigate/hold to account the executive branch.
So in 2010, an extra 5 million people who would’ve normally stayed home went out to vote GOP, while 1 million people who normally would’ve voted dem stayed home. So with 40 million as the baseline, the end result was 45 million to 39 million.
I ‘think’ (emphasis on think) that we may be looking more at a situation where in the house the GOP gets ~35 million votes and the democrats get ~50 million. That’d give the democrats 59% of the vote, probably the biggest margin in modern times.
I think that is fairly realistic. I think upthread I felt the GOP would get 40 million votes, but it’ll probably be closer to 35 million. Trumps popularity is cratering, and the GOP congress hasn’t done much for their base other than pass tax cuts for the wealthy. In 2014 the GOP got 40 million votes for the house (vs 35 million for the dems). I think turnout for the GOP might be about where the dem turnout was in 2014, around ~35 million.
However, again, with gerrymandering I don’t know how many seats they’ll actually get from a 50-35 million vote majority.
Also keep in mind that while 50 million sounds like a lot, it is still about 10-15 million fewer votes than either party will get in the house elections of 2016 or 2020. In 2016 the GOP got 63 million house votes, the democrats got 62 million house votes.
It isn’t like a bunch of new voters will be turning out. What’ll happen is fewer people who normally would’ve stayed home will decide to stay home in 2018. Normally 30% of democratic voters who vote in presidential year elections would stay home (the other 70% vote in both midterms and presidential year elections) in a midterm, in 2018 it may only be 10-15% who decide to stay home.
I really don’t know the answer. I know in some special elections, democratic turnout was about equal to presidential year turnout (Ossoff for example). In the Alabama special election, dem turnout was only 9% lower than in presidential year. But in other races turnout was 20% lower.
Best case scenario (this is a very rosy picture)? Dem turnout is only 10% lower than presidential year, while GOP turnout is low and demoralized even by midterm standards. In that case it’d be closer to 57 million vs 35 million votes. That works out to 62-38.
But we will see. Can’t get complacent.
septimus’s mistake likely was swapping the number of seats in the House between D and R.
I think the optimal gaming strategy here is to update when another poster is closer to your current best estimate than your previously posted estimate is.
I think it will, because if we are talking about ~59% Democratic votes, we’re talking about independents turning to Dems in yuuuuuuuuge numbers. That changes the calculus in a lot of districts that were drawn to be ~55% Republican safe seats.
BUT… I acknowledge that the rule changes in posts 28/30 have very large impacts on the outcome for this game. Personally, I think it is completely absurd to throw away third party votes for the purposes of this competition, but whatever. Not my game, any silly rules aren’t my business.
I’ll eat my hat if Dems get 50 million votes. No fucking way. Might as well say that the Republican Congress is going to impeach Trump just days before the 2018 elections. But we shall see, won’t we?
You don’t need independents to become democrats to get 50 million votes. You just need democrats who’d normally vote in presidential years to turnout in the midterms.
The 2018 election is a question of ‘which party can encourage the most people who’d normally vote in a presidential year election but stay home in a midterm to also vote in a midterm’.
Midterms on average have turnout 30-40% lower than presidential years. The 2016 house elections had 63 million GOP votes and 62 million democratic votes. That is the baseline assuming 100% turnout in a midterm. You don’t need to flip a ton of independents and republicans to the democrats to get 50 million votes, you just need to ensure that instead of 22 million democrats who voted in 2016 staying home in 2018, only 12 million stay home in the midterm elections.
If you assume due to Trump’s incompetence, criminality and unpopularity, that GOP turnout is about the same as democratic turnout was in 2014 after 6 years of Obama, that means ~35 million GOP votes.
But in the special elections so far, democratic turnout is only 10-20% lower than it was in 2016 for house elections.
In Montana in 2016, the democrat got 205k votes, in the special election they got 166k. About a 19% reduction in turnout.
In Georgia Ossoff got about the same # of votes the candidate got in 2016.
In Alabama, turnout for the dems was 9% lower than in 2016. Due to Moore’s unpopularity it was 51% lower for the GOP.
If the democrats can ensure turnout is only 10-20% lower than it was in 2016, then that means they’d get 50-56 million votes. So far, that is what the turnout is like in their special elections.
It is a rosy picture, but 35-40 million GOP votes vs 50-57 democratic votes could be possible if current trends continue.
But that’s assuming current trends continue. Trump’s underwater, sure, but the amount is decreasing. So is the generic congressional number. The race will tighten over the course of the year and there are too many unknown factors.
Will Trump do something to damage his brand outside his core following? Maybe! Will congress continue to behave in a way that irritates the average voter? Maybe!
Those things will have an enormous impact on November. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Will we start watering our crops with Gatorade because of the electrolytes? I’m not ruling that out!
This early is basically a crap shoot, but I want to guess early to preserve my spot 
I think most will find the relative value of an early spot fading when Trump tanks his numbers. Does a growing economy - clearly occurring - offset the uncertainty of the President’s behavior? Tough call.
How about we pick an over/under for total Democratic votes in House midterms, and make a side wager? Since you are predicting 50-56 million Democratic votes, I propose this: a $50 bet. If there are 49 million or more Democratic votes, you win. Less than 49 million, I win.
Whaddya think?
Pfft, a truly good prognosticator takes all that into account. 
But I don’t think we have any of those around here. :o
Here’s my (current) guess:
House: 215D
Senate: 50D 50R
Vote: 54%D 46%R
Gerrymandering (also known as cheating) is the big potential spoiler, which should any believer in democracy incredibly furious…
Since I’m the only one here who’s posted anything resembling a model, thanks for the vote of confidence. 